Stars
by Angela Pirate Ryoko
Summary: During a drinking party in Cape Cod, Shorter muses over what he knows and Ash and Eiji are just starting to figure out. [takes place between the scenes in volume 3]


Stars

Angela Teagardner

12-14-04

Cape Cod, 1987

I don't know where Ash got the beer. The half-filled bottles of hard liquor are easy—it's obvious that he snagged them from the counter behind his old man's bar, but the bar doesn't sell beer in cans, and yet we have a six-pack cooling in the ocean, tied to the dock with an old, slimy rope.

One thing you have to give Ash Lynx, he's resourceful. I wonder if whoever he stole it from have even noticed the beer is gone. At seven-thirty tonight Ash didn't have even a drop of alcohol on him, yet by eight we were already sitting on the dock, talking a little and drinking a lot. It seems like overkill—all that booze for three guys.

Particularly if one of those guys is Eiji. He's out cold. A couple of swigs of Schmirnoff and a long gulp of Wild Turkey is all it took to finish him off. He's sprawled out on the grass, snoring softly. Ash is sipping a bottle of gin, his feet dangling off the dock. The sun went down an hour ago, and the blue dusk is cool enough to be uncomfortable. I search for twigs and wood for a campfire—not that I know how to build one.

"So what's this about?" I ask, finding a bare patch to dump my sticks. I kneel on the sandy ground, pulling hands full of grass away to clear a circle. "First, you and Eiji take off early this morning and leave me with the geezers, and suddenly you wanna hang out and drink, which you never do."

"I dunno," Ash says slowly, kicking his feet so the water splashes. "Is it a crime to want to hang out with your two best friends on the one night in your life that the whole world _isn't_ out to kill you?" He lays back on the dock, staring at the sky. "'Sides, it's a pretty night, isn't it?"

That's when I know he's drunk. I shake my head and pile the twigs and sticks together. I dig my Zippo out of my pocket and try lighting them. "Gorgeous," I confirm, not bothering to look at the stars or the ocean or anything else that Ash might be getting sentimental about. "Do you know how to get a fire started?"

"Kindling," Ash says decisively, not bothering to move. "Or paper. Something that burns easy." I hear the slow slur in his words and wonder just how much he's had to drink in the past two hours. "Not th' grass, though. 'S too green."

So what burns? I glance around. It's too dark to see. I yank off my sunglasses and try again, finding nothing but sand and grass and bottles. An idea strikes. Alcohol burns, right? I grabbed the bottle closest to me—nasty stuff that tastes like rubbing alcohol—and douse my sticks with the stuff. Before it has a chance to evaporate, I flick the wheel of my lighter.

"Shit!" I yank my hand away just quickly enough to avoid a burn.

Ash looks up. "Whad'ya use? Gasoline?" His comment is warranted, I suppose; the fire is tall and suddenly raging. I hope it catches the wood before the whiskey burns off. "Why'd you need a fire anyway?"

"It can't be more than sixty-five degrees out here," I tell him, tossing a few more twigs on top of the flames. "And if I'm cold, I'm sure the kid's freezing." I gesture to where Eiji lies sleeping in his shorts and t-shirt.

Ash turns, looking interested for the first time. Wordlessly he pulls his feet back onto the dock and stands. He's wobbly for less than a second before being back to his slick, graceful self. In a swift motion, he strides over to us and whips off his sweatshirt. He crouches near Eiji and drapes shirt over his sleeping form. The Japanese boy immediately curls into it, snuggling his cheek against the sleeve.

Ash crouches next to him, swaying slightly in an effort to keep his balance. His hand shakes as he reaches to push Eiji's hair out of his eyes. He catches me looking and pulls away, landing on the ground with a _thud _as he grasps his bottle of gin instead.

My chest hurts.

It's not because I don't like this thing between them, and not because I'm jealous. Ash is a good looking guy—anyone who can't admit that has something to deal with—but I can safely say that girls are the only people who manage to get _that kind _of attention from me.

"What are you gonna do with him?" I ask Ash after a moment, ignoring the fire to focus on my friend's face. He's not hiding anything; his feelings for the Japanese boy are as obvious as a black eye. "He's not like some stray you can just keep."

For a moment Ash's face goes dark, but an instant later it shows the same tipsy affection. He shakes his head. "Dunno," he confesses. "I tried pushin' him away before, but he wouldn' go." A long pause stretches between us as he stares at the flames—now having caught the twigs and only a few inches high. "I don' really want him to," he concludes sadly, swigging his gin like a jaded old man.

I put my sunglasses back on and stare at the fire. "We're gonna get ourselves killed, you know," I say, partly to Ash and partly to myself. "This thing feels bigger than we can handle."

Ash nods. "Tha's why you gotta help me send Eiji home," he says. "No matter what happens to me, he's gotta be okay. He's gotta forget about all this and live a long time. Happy."

I can't tell Ash what I'm thinking, that it's too late for us to expect Eiji to forget, to move on and be happy alone in Japan. He hasn't noticed yet, the way Eiji looks at him, the way his eyes light up when Ash enters the room. He's been too preoccupied with fighting his own feelings to even consider that they might be reciprocated.

Eiji stirs, gasping in quiet surprise when he sees the ocean and the fire and Ash sitting so near. He sits up, his hand immediately on the earth to steady himself. "What happen?" he asks, his voice thick with sleep and booze. "Did I sleep?" He blushes red enough for me to be able to see it in the shadows.

Ash picks up the sweatshirt that fell to the ground and hands it to the Japanese boy. Eiji takes it gratefully, murmuring something I don't catch as he slides it over his arms.

Ash smiles.

In all the years I've known him, I've never seen him smile like that. I'm grateful for my shades—it looks like I'm paying attention only to fire I'm tending. We have a lot of ground to cover in the next few days. Los Angeles is a long way off and a million things could happen—there are as many options as there were stars in the sky.

I go to the end of the dock and yank the beer out of the water. It's not as cold as it could be, but it'll do. I take one and toss the rest back into the ocean. My friends don't even look up when the crisp pop of my beer tab breaks the silence, and I know this great thing they're feeling might lead to the worst moments of their lives.

I slide my glasses low and glance up at the sky. It's kind of amazing to see just how many stars are up there. Eiji laughs, low and intimate and meant only for Ash. I lay down and stare at the sky. Maybe it's the slosh of the dock below me and the spin of a bit too much to drink that makes me sentimental, but suddenly I feel encouraged, that half the possibilities out there could lead to a happy ending, after all.


End file.
